


Homeward Bound

by Absolkitty



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everyone lives because fuck you that's why, F/F, Gen, They deserved better, This is what happens when Bioware gives me feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:33:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Absolkitty/pseuds/Absolkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home is where the heart is. For Tali and Missy Shepard, that means the (home)world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homeward Bound

“Go!” Shepard yelled, giving Tali and Garrus one last longing look, as if she was burning their faces into her memory, before hauling ass after Anderson and the remaining few members of Hammer. Garrus stared after his best friend, praying to the Spirits for the umpteenth time to keep her safe. A soft whimper broke him out of his reverie and he remembered Tali slumped against him, her arm still wrapped around his shoulder for walking support. He gently maneuvered them both a ways inside, and caught her as she collapsed bonelessly to the floor. The Normandy’s airlock door slid shut and they felt Joker hit the gas as they sped off of Earth’s surface.  

 “Tali…” He touched her shoulder gingerly, hoping to offer even a modicum of comfort but she flinched out of the way.

“She _needs_ me,” Tali whispered painfully as she struggled to stand up. “I have to go back! I have to-” She made it two paces before her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor once more.  With a grunt, Garrus heaved himself up and limped over to Tali, her chest now heaving with silent sobs. With some alarm, he noticed dark red blood seeping out of a rather large hole in Tali’s side.

 Garrus suddenly remembered why they were sent back in the first place.

“I need Chakwas in the airlock, STAT!” he barked into his comm. “We have a suit breach!”

Not even thirty seconds had passed before the doctor with her trusty bag of medical supplies, and surprisingly Ashley, came hurtling towards them. Ashley’s eyes widened upon seeing Garrus and Tali, then bowed her head with understanding. “Shit,” she whispered.

“Ashley, help Garrus to the medbay, do what you can for him there, and I’ll handle the rest later.” Chakwas ordered, taking various supplies out of her bag. “I’ll take care of Tali in here, get her stabilized. Edi, activate the decontamination process in the airlock in two minutes.”

“Acknowledged, Karin,” Edi’s voice rang out.

“Aye aye, doc.  C’mon, Vakarian.” Ashley wrapped an arm around the Turian’s shoulder for support and he gladly leaned on her, relieved to finally get some weight off of his injured leg. “Oof! Damn, Garrus. Put on some weight recently?” she teased as they headed back down towards the medbay. “You might need some calibrating of your own.”

“Aw man, low blow, Williams,” Garrus complained. “Sure, mock the injured. That’ll win you points from the brass.”

Dr. Chakwas shook her head in amusement as she watched the bantering duo leave. The door leading to the inside of the Normandy closed and locked, leaving just her and Tali in the small enclosed space. The slight scent of disinfectant suddenly filled the air as a soft, white beam of light washed over the two of them. She immediately ran a scan on her patient, finding her hot with fever and blood loss.

“Dammit,” she muttered. “Wasted a bit too much time. Tali, dear, are you awake?”

“M’fine,” she slurred weakly. “Want Shepard here…”

Karin winced in sympathy. “All right dear. I need you to bear with me. I know your suit is already drowning you in antibiotics, but I’m going to administer some intravenously, along with some of your previously donated blood.” She hesitated. “I’m also going to have to remove parts of your suit to work on you. Are you okay with this?”

She received a slight nod in response.

Karin removed Tali’s glove and rolled the sleeve of her left arm up. It didn’t take long to find a vein, and she expertly inserted the IV, and administered the antibiotics first, before hooking the bag of Tali’s blood up. She scanned Tali again, noting that her fever had gone down a few degrees, and deemed it safe enough to begin treating the more pressing injuries.

“Will Tali be all right?” Edi's voice echoed throughout the airlock. “My sensors indicate she’s running a very high fever and is on the verge of going into shock.” Even with the slight distortion from the speaker, Edi sounded concerned.  

Karin was busily removing the torn parts of Tali’s suit, slathering a few of the worst wounds with medigel before stitching them back up; the interruption didn’t even phase her. “Physically, I believe she’ll make a full recovery, provided we can repair this gaping hole in her side.” She answered confidently.

“I sense there is another part to your answer.” 

“Very astute, Edi, but right now isn’t the time for that.”

“Acknowledged, Karin.  Please let me know if I can assist you with anything else.”

The doctor sighed. “Until I know for certain that it will be safe to move Tali to a more secure location, please ensure that no one attempts to enter the airlock corridor. Thank you, Edi.”

“Anyone who attempts to enter the airlock will be spaced,” came Edi’s voice, more serious this time. “That was-“

“A joke, I know. Now please let me work!” Karin rolled her eyes affectionately as she proceeded to assist with the suit’s repair. Tali, for obvious reasons, couldn’t do them herself, and Karin was suddenly grateful she’d asked Tali to teach her how to repair suit breaches all those years ago. But she wasn't considered the best doctor in the Alliance for nothing, though. Another dose of Medigel, another decontamination in the airlock, and she deemed her work acceptable. All that was left for her to do was monitor the Quarian’s recovery. 

“How does it feel, dear?” Karin asked. “I’m fairly certain I did everything like you showed me-” She scanned Tali with her omnitool again, and nodded at the readings. A little rest and Tali would be back to her normal self in a couple of days.

Tali lifted her right arm and ran it gingerly over her injured side. “It feels okay. I think. I feel a little better now, though I’m pretty sure I’ve overdosed on Antibiotics…” she trailed off. Karin grinned down at her.

“Yes, well, with the injury you came in with, I think your body can afford to take as much help as we can give it.” She glanced up at the IV, the blood bag now nearly empty. “Just a bit longer, and we can get that out. I know how much you hate needles.”

Tali remained silent.

“Tali,” Karin started, looking down at her patient with sad eyes. “I can only imagine what you must be feeling…”

“I don’t want to feel,” came the weary response. “I don’t want to even think right now. It’s just… not fair.”

The doctor sighed. “No. It really isn’t.”

Tali made to sit up, but Karin stopped her, gently pushing her back down. “No, not yet. Move the wrong way and you’ll rip the stitches. You're also still recovering from blood loss. Give the medigel some time to harden up and the antibiotics to kick in, and then we can get you to a bed for some rest."

“I can’t sleep if she’s not there with me,” Tali whispered hoarsely. “I...wish I had had more time-” The dam broke, and Tali was once again reduced to tears. Karin did the only thing she could think of, and gently gathered her into her arms. Tali clung to her desperately.

“Melissa is going to be fine,” Karin murmured softly, rubbing Tali’s back gently. “She’s going to make it.”

“But what if she _doesn’t?”_   Tali whispered, burying her face into Karin’s shoulder.

Karin grimaced slightly at the feel of Tali’s mask pressing into her shoulder. “Then we’ll do what we did the last time. We’ll celebrate her life, we’ll mourn, and then we’ll continue living for her.”

Tali sniffed. “How can you say that so easily?” she asked sounding mortified. “Can you really just forget her that quickly?”

Karin shook her head. “Forgive me, dear. I…that was a bit too harsh, even for me. I’m just reminded what we went through the first time something like this happened. It took at least a year before I was even remotely able to accept the fact that she was well and truly gone. Not like the vids or messages from the council and the Alliance were of any help,” she added bitterly. “But now, after dodging death myself with her twice now, I realized something.”

Tali tilted her head up. “What?”

The doctor smiled down at her. “Death is unavoidable, but with Melissa, it’s as though It comes close, then runs away screaming at the mere sight of her. I just have this feeling that she’s going to be okay.”

“But, there’s no Cerberus to bring her back this time if she doesn't make it,” Tali said brokenly. “Keelah, I can’t believe I even said that.”

Karin chuckled. “The only thing they were good for,” she said with a shake of her head. “Listen to me, Tali, it’s not the end. Not yet. Shepard will get to the beam, fire the crucible, save the galaxy, and you two can go back to Rannoch, and invite me over for tea sometime. Understood?” 

Tali sniffed, reached up, and removed her mask to wipe her eyes. “I wish I were there with her,” she said sadly, before clicking the mask back in place.

“What would you do if you were, Tali?” Karin asked softly. “We have no real way of knowing what would happen once someone reached the beam. For all we know, you could be ported to somewhere else on the Citadel, or worse, be disintegrated on contact. And then what?”

“Then at least I would have had a few extra seconds left with her!” Tali snapped back.

“Only to leave her completely devastated soon after!” Karin retorted. “Do you even know how much that girl adores you or how much you mean to her?”

Tali made to cross her arms, then winced as she remembered the needle still stuck in her arm. “Speaking as her girlfriend, I’d like to think I do,” she answered, staring up at the doctor defiantly.

Karin stiffened, then gently moved the Quarian off of her lap and back onto the floor and stood up, turning her back towards Tali. “No, Tali, I really don’t think you do,” she said firmly,

That caught Tali off guard. “What do you mean?” she asked hesitantly.

Karin was quiet for a moment. “On Rannoch, right before she decided to go charging off to fight that damn Reaper on foot, what was the last thing she said to you?”

Tali’s response was immediate. “She said, ‘ _Keelah se’lai_ ’.”

Karin continued. “From what Melissa told me, it roughly means, _‘By the homeworld I hope to see someday’_ , yes?” 

Tali wondered what she was getting at. “Yes, but-“

“Have you ever wondered why Shepard has never mentioned her family to you?”

Tali wrung her hands nervously. “I know kind of what happened on Mindoir-“

Karin nodded, though Tali couldn’t see her face. “Then you know that her entire family, including her aunts, uncles, and cousins, were murdered in front of her? That she was moved from foster home to foster home until she signed up to join the Alliance at the age of eighteen?”

“ _Keelah,”_ Tali breathed, horrified. “I-no. She never said that _everyone_ was killed...she only mentioned her parents-“

“The significance of her ‘Keelah se’lai’ in response to your, ‘I love you’ means more than you can imagine, Tali. To her, not only are you are her home, you are her family; her _only_ family. _You_ are the one she hopes to see herself with someday. You mean the _world_ to that girl, Tali’zorah.” Karin turned to face Tali, eyes blazing. “She considers every single one of those who has served on this ship her family, and she would give her life- _again_ \- to make sure they come out alive. She already took a risk having you and Garrus with her on that final push, and she was smart to send you back; there is no way you would have made it otherwise.” Karin shut her eyes.  After a moment, she opened them, and her familiar warmth had replaced the anger. The doctor placed a hand on Tali’s shoulder, offering the distraught Quarian a small smile. “I know you want to be there with her, but the best place you can be right now is here on the Normandy. You are putting her mind at ease, knowing her home is out of harm’s way.”

Not for the last time, Tali felt her own eyes well up with tears. “But she’s my home too,” she whispered.

Karin knelt down and proceeded to remove the IV from Tali’s arm and staunch the blood flow with a cotton ball. “Then let’s wait for her to come home,” she said simply.

**Author's Note:**

> Played as fem!shep and romanced Tali and let me tell you, the feels were REAL, AND GODDAMNIT THEY DESERVE AN ENDING BETTER THAN WHAT BIOWARE GAVE THEM.
> 
> So it falls to me to make sure that shit happens. I hope I do it justice.


End file.
